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Will I do ok without a bass amp (DI)?

N

NordLead

Sep 17, 2009
53
0
#1
Put simply, I'm a guitarist, I'm getting a new bass for the studio, but don't have cash for an amp (yet).

Will I do at least semi-ok with getting just a bass DI? In the future I'd love to get a great bass amp but finances won't allow for it at the moment. A miked cab + a DI combined sounds excellent I imagine, but I'll do my best with just a DI for now until I can afford a good amp.

Thoughts?
 
#3
You can't go wrong with a good quality DI. In fact, it's a lot easier to mess up your signal micing an amp than it is with a decent quality DI. Bass generally records easier with a DI, which I realize is sacrilege among guitarists... :)

Get something like a Radial J48 (active DI) or JDI (passive Jensen xfmr) and you'll have a very usable sound. That's been my experience, anyway.
 
#5
This will be strictly for studio use. It might make it to live in the future, but definitely about 95% studio use. I'm experienced with miking up my guitar cabs so when I get a bass amp, I'm sure it'll be no problem.

I'm curious as to how much engineers mic a bass cab Vs. use a DI. It's my best bet to blend, but a part of me is wondering how often an album can get by with using solely a DI....
 
#7
NordLead said:
This will be strictly for studio use. It might make it to live in the future, but definitely about 95% studio use. I'm experienced with miking up my guitar cabs so when I get a bass amp, I'm sure it'll be no problem.

I'm curious as to how much engineers mic a bass cab Vs. use a DI. It's my best bet to blend, but a part of me is wondering how often an album can get by with using solely a DI....
Click to expand...

I always DI and mic, sometimes double mic and sometimes even double amp double mic (not that often, thankfully!). However, its very common for an album to be cut with just a di. Often the straight DI signal is fine, or if you want a meatier 'amped' sound then you can use a plugin like SVX.
 
#8
I'm pretty sure almost every pro Engineer records a DI even if they're recording a mic'd amp or not, if it won't be mixed in it's taken at least for "just in case" the bass could get re-amped (this is also perfectly normal with guitars nowadays).

If you get a good clean DI like a radial you can use ampsims like Ampeg SVX in the mix or just process the raw DI sound, or you could use a preamp/DI type of thing like the Sansamp BDDI or VT or others that gives a good and beefed up enough sound to use it as your main tone in a mix
 
#12
why not mic up a guitar amp and play bass through it? if you keep the volume down below what would blow your guitar amp, it can sound fantastic and every bit as good as a bass amp. might want to blend a di with it if you're not getting enough lows, but guitar amps work great in the studio on bass.
 
#13
Only recording a bass through a DI is quiet common. It will give you a really clean tone, and then you can process it from there if you want. Some DIs are designed specifically for bass and have a pre amp built in.

It really comes down to the sound that you want to achieve though. For example, Les Claypool changes the way that he records his basses from song to song. One song may be all DI and the next song may be a mix of direct and a miced amp, etc....
 
#14
JimmyM said:
why not mic up a guitar amp and play bass through it? if you keep the volume down below what would blow your guitar amp, it can sound fantastic and every bit as good as a bass amp. might want to blend a di with it if you're not getting enough lows, but guitar amps work great in the studio on bass.
Click to expand...

+1

I did some low-volume home recording of bass tracks through a guitar amp one time, the tone was incredible.
 
#15
JimmyM said:
why not mic up a guitar amp and play bass through it? if you keep the volume down below what would blow your guitar amp, it can sound fantastic and every bit as good as a bass amp. might want to blend a di with it if you're not getting enough lows, but guitar amps work great in the studio on bass.
Click to expand...

One of my favorite ever studio bass tones (of me) was recorded through a 1950's 12 watt Fender guitar amp. The volume was quite low, and had an awesome crunchy outer shell with a chewy creamy middle! We mixed that signal with a direct bass signal and it sounded just bee-yu-tifff-full!

Or: use an amp sim plug-in. PodFarm is pretty decent, or the Amplitube SVT plug in is really great also. Lots and lots of choices when going the software route.
 
#16
Geddy_Lee_Chickens.jpg
 
#18
FunkMetalBass said:
In the studio, mic'd bass cabs are far less common than mic'd guitar cabs. Provided you can get a decent sound out of the bass (strings, technique) and the recording engineer isn't a n00b, you'll be fine.
Click to expand...
while this is true in some circles, i'm seeing and hearing about a lot more mic'ed amps these days. even types of music where you wouldn't expect it.
 
#19
My friend has a fifteen watt Peavey guitar amp. It's really the most horrible sounding little thing ever for guitar. But I plug my bass into that, and boy do I get some delicious, fuzzy distortion! And I also somehow manage to never blow it, even at high gain and half volume.


That's not helpful, though, because a recording engineer has nightmares about that sort of thing. Just sayin'.
 

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